01594126

Component

This paper describes a scalable approach to simulation of decentralized adaptive signal control systems, motivated by an interest to provide a basis for assessing the benefit of the Surtrac (Scalable URban TRAffic Control) adaptive signal control system at a potential deployment site in advance of installation. The approach centers around a simulation controller interface called Vissim Simulation Controller (VISCO), which links the VISSIM microscopic traffic simulator to a set of externally hosted local intersection control processes. Local control processes are free to communicate with each other and exchange control information in the same manner that they would in a field implementation. VISCO coordinates all interaction with the simulator process to create a distributed software-in-the-loop simulation architecture. To illustrate and analyze the efficacy of the approach, the authors summarize a simulation analysis that was conducted of the downtown triangle area of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A 63-intersection VISSIM model of this site is described and analyses are presented to characterize both the efficiency of the distributed architecture and the potential utility of Surtrac adaptive control. With respect to the former, the distributed simulation of local Surtrac control processes is found to run in roughly 4.4 times faster than real-time, in comparison to the 14.4 times faster than real-time speed that a conventional VISSIM simulation of this model with fixed timing plans performed. Experiments also show that the VISCO distributed architecture is effective in significantly reducing the cost associated with VISSIM’s external COM interface. With respect expected improvement of adaptive signal control in the downtown triangle area of Pittsburgh, the simulation analysis shows strong benefit of Surtrac over both the existing timing plans in use in this area and Synchro optimized plans that were generated with perfect knowledge of traffic volumes and turning counts.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB25 Standing Committee on Traffic Signal Systems.

01584066

16-5951

English

14p

2016

Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Adaptive control; Costs; Traffic signal control systems; Traffic simulation; Urban areas

VISSIM (Computer model)

Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania)

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016 Paper #16-5951

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 12 2016 6:38PM